


Theirs

by jujubiest



Series: SPN One-Shots [27]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x20 I don't know her, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29599359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: Castiel is awake early on a Saturday, thinking about what it means to get everything he ever wanted.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN One-Shots [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/177362
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	Theirs

**Author's Note:**

> I spend like 99% of my fandom time in Dean Winchester's head, but today I guess I decided I wanted to spend some time in Cas's. Takes place sometime after Dean and Cas's season 16 wedding and honeymoon. 15x20 is of course ignored.

What does getting what you want look like when you already had most of it?

Castiel had a lot of time to think about that, after he made the deal.

What did he want? What had he always wanted, since wanting became a thing he knew how to do?

He thinks it's this.

Quiet. It's a Saturday, and no one else is awake yet. He can feel it, in the way the silence lays heavy across the bunker. There's no tell-tale shuffle of feet in the hall or distant clatter from the direction of the kitchen, nothing stirring at all beyond the walls of the room he's in.

Dean's room. _Their_ room.

Castiel is lying on his back, one leg curled up under the blankets, the other stretched out toward the foot of the bed. This is the only way he could get comfortable, when he was human last. Now that he is again, it's the same.

But it's also different. Because this time, he’s not sleeping alone.

This time, Dean is here.

Dean, who usually sleeps half on his stomach, slightly tilted to one side, hugging a pillow with one hand buried underneath, resting on the grip of a gun. But there's no gun, the pillow is somewhere on the floor by now, and Dean is instead holding onto _him_ , head pillowed on Castiel’s chest.

He can feel the rise and fall, the rhythm of Dean's breathing matched to Castiel’s own. He lifts the arm not wrapped around Dean's shoulders and brushes it through Dean's hair, a bit longer now than he normally wears it, the soft strands looking darker than they are in the faint light coming in from under the door. The bunker is never fully dark unless something is wrong, but this light is only enough to see shapes by, not colors. Everything is shades of gray in the darkness, Dean's face paler than his hair, Castiel’s hand in it somewhere between the two.

The ring on his finger glints softly, brighter than all the rest.

Castiel stares at it for a moment, heart filled with gratitude and wonder. It's a symbol, for humans. A symbol of love and commitment. A symbol of promises made and kept.

It's a symbol for Castiel, too, though it has layers beyond just the usual sentiment. He remembers all too well the wistful joy-pain of the last few years, the ache of having _almost_ what he wanted, and the tight, crushing feeling of always waiting for the moment it would be taken away.

Living here, making it his home. Dean sleeping two doors down. Spending his days learning about his son, _their_ son, teaching him, listening to him, comforting him, guiding him. Nights when Dean made dinner and they were all together and it was easy, peaceful. Staying up long after Jack and Sam had gone to sleep, watching movies together in the dark, comfortable in each other’s company.

The way Dean would look at him sometimes, mouth almost smiling in a way that said he was barely holding something back, eyes warm and bright with affection. And Castiel would think to himself, _this is it. This is everything I want. Just this, more of this, forever._ And every time, he'd braced himself for the coldness of the Empty to swallow him whole.

But it never came.

They'd been playing house. It wasn't a phrase he'd known at the time, but he knows it now. Knows it because Dean said it to him, one night just a handful of weeks ago. He looked at Castiel across the table in their kitchen and said, "I don't wanna go back to the way things were, Cas. Playin' house with you and Jack. I can't."

He'd understood immediately what Dean meant, and it _hurt_ \--and it scared him--more than he thought it would, to be caught out like that. To have Dean know what he wanted, what he dreamed of when Dean looked at him in that warm way, when Jack followed Dean around trying to be just like him and Dean caught Castiel watching with his heart in his eyes.

He'd thought, when he told Dean the truth about his feelings, that he'd never have to deal with what Dean might have to say about them. It was cowardly of him, in retrospect, but he'd clung to that small solace in what he thought would be his final moments: that he would never have to know _for sure_ that Dean didn't want it too. If he was never going to see Dean again, at least he could die pretending.

But Dean found a way. Of course he did. Dean came after him and dragged him back home, alive. He shouldn't have been surprised. He should have known Dean would. He cursed himself, that night in the kitchen, even knowing he couldn't--wouldn't--have done anything differently.

But then: a miracle. One made just for him. Dean hadn't left him there, hurting and cursing himself at their kitchen table. Dean hadn't shattered him and left him like so much glittering glass.

Dean had reached across the table and taken his hand.

"I don't wanna play house anymore," he'd said, eyes too bright and locked on Castiel’s. He'd looked young, then, face open and vulnerable in a way he so rarely allowed himself. Something squeezes painfully in Castiel’s chest even now, thinking how Dean had looked so _afraid_ when he said the next part.

"Cas, before. When we found out about Chuck. You told me that we were real.”

He’d held Castiel’s hand tight, like he expected him to fly away at any moment.

“I wanna. I want it... _us_ to be. Real."

Castiel had been so happy he hadn’t known what to say. So he’d done the first wild thing that came into his head at the time. He’d pulled Dean toward him.

Dean had been happy to be pulled.

Now, on this too-early Saturday, Castiel traces patterns on Dean's back through his shirt as he sleeps. It's cold in the bunker in winter, too cold to shed all the layers and sleep skin to skin. But Castiel doesn't mind, likes the softness of Dean's well-worn t-shirt against him, likes the light drag of his fingers over the thin fabric, tracing secrets into his beloved as he sleeps.

It's like the difference between being an angel and being human, in a way, this difference between wanting hopelessly and having completely. The _things_ he hadn't had, after all, had been small things mostly.

Waking up with Dean in his arms. Reaching out to touch him, to soothe, to comfort, just to feel Dean warm and alive under his fingertips. Permission to let his gaze linger a beat too long, to stand a bit too close, to press a kiss to the scattered freckles under Dean’s eyes whenever he felt like it, feel the warmth of Dean’s blush beneath his lips when he did.

And even better: feeling Dean's easy breathing against him in the morning, feeling Dean reach for him each night. Dean's hands on him for no reason at all, all the time, arm around his shoulders, hand on his back, lips pressed to his cheek. Dean's eyes seeking his across tables, rooms, the Impala's front seat. Dean's shoulder pressing into his, Dean in his space, their space now. Dean saying his name in the night like a prayer.

Small things, but they added up to one really big, impossible, perfect thing. They were all ways to say _I love you_ and _I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,_ and most beautifully, _Stay._

It's being and having and knowing he is known, what he wants and dreams is _known,_ and feeling Dean, knowing all this, lean closer. Because he wants it, too. Because they had dreamt the same dreams. It’s knowing Dean treasures this life they have together the way Castiel does, knowing he isn’t alone in the sweeping, heady whirlwind of his love.

That? Just that, it’s everything Castiel wanted. And it’s his. _Theirs._


End file.
